Andy Arhelger <andya5@aol.com> wrote:
>My younger boy sort of wanted to learn on his own like I did without my help
>but gave up early. I have spent some time with him but he doesn’t want to spend
>the time to learn. I took turns at the beginning working with each of them and
>the older boy progressed faster. The young one got discouraged and has pretty
>much given up. I think he will learn eventually but I have found you can’t make
>him do it.
>Now for my 2 year old daughter…
If I remember correctly, the youngest rider on record is 18 month old Nini Hall,
daughter of the great Mell Hall. She made her unicycling debut in a circus,
wearing diapers. I don’t know the extent of her riding at that time, but I do
know that the learning curve gets steeper as the rider gets younger. Mel must
have spent a great deal of time and patience on the project. In later years, he
taught orangutans (?) to ride unicycles, and there is a picture of one in an
issue of the USA Newsletter from '81 or '82.
>From my experience, it seems that people generally learn the fastest between
the ages of 10 and 25 or so. As riders get younger, their learning time
increases, and is much longer for riders age 6 or less. Much of the learning
time is related to the rider’s pre-existing skills (do they do dance,
gymnastics, or other balance activities?). Riders over the age of 25 or so tend
to me more cautious and more analytical in their approach. Sometimes they
“think” too much, and they are even afraid of falling down!
It would be interesting to learn how long people took to learn to ride, at what
age, and on what type of unicycle. For instance, I was 14, it took me between 3
and 5 weeks to be able to ride down my driveway in a straight line, and my
unicycle was a piece of junk Headstrom with a solid plastic tire an no bearings.
The unicycle is definitely a factor in the learning process. Another
consideration would be whether or not the unicycle fit you well.
What were YOUR learning experiences?
John Foss, IUF president unicycle@aol.com